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COMEDY IS - A FUNNY OLD BUSINESS AUDIO REVIEW - - AMERICAN ART DECO: DESIGNING FOR THE PEOPLE, 1918–1939
- - BECOMING OTHELLO: A BLACK GIRL'S JOURNEY - - IATSE LOCAL ONE AND THE METROPOLITAN OPERA - -
CHARLIE & STAN - - ROYAL ALBERT HALL PRESENTS 150TH ANNIVERSARY CONCERT - -
PSYCHOANALYSIS FOR THE PEOPLE
- - THE WORK OF PAULA REGO - - DONATE . . . Scroll Down
Copyright: July 11, 2021
By: Laura Deni
CLICK HERE FOR COMMENT SECTION
COMEDY IS - A FUNNY OLD BUSINESS
Joel Soetendorp's A Funny Old Business is a comedy about comedy school.
Soetendorp is the comedic writer who once penned an article for Heathline publications entitled: 25 Things Only Someone with Bipolar Disorder Would Understand.
The list included
Every morning you wake up thinking, “today is going to be a great day. Just not for me.”
Your cat would describe you as the aloof and needy one.
When you’re manic, nothing makes you angrier than someone suggesting you’re irritable.
Manic episodes give you a heightened sex drive, which makes it unfortunate you can’t maintain any relationships.
In A Funny Old Business Soetendorp has thrown together an eclectic group of enthusiastic comedy students and a Dalek, as they seek out their funny bones and duck the punch lines at Robert Mugabee University (formerly Hackney Polytechnic for the Academically Less Gifted).
Starring: Richard Rycroft, Karen Bartholomew, Jan Haydn Rowles, Reuben Anderson, Trevor Cutherbertson, Jack Bowman and Nell Frost.
Student include social worker Pigeon who doesn't believe in jokes "it's language to hurt others, mockery, a verbal fist, I'm believe in co-operative story telling " -
accountant Thomas, TPC who is dressed as a Dalek, and speaks through a Dalek voice changer - Marco who is from Romania and works for the "American institution Starbucks" - Pete who feels that "comedy isn't about bullying, it isn't about cruelty, it's about sharing fun, and laughter, sometimes it's about joking about minorities, or people with tragic illness's, but you're never laughing at them, you're laughing . . . in their general vicinity they're part of the joke, because they are the joke…sort of……." as well as Agnes, Marko, and Frank.
The students are asked to each tell a joke - the results of which are representative of the numerous individuals attending these classes who think they are funny when, in fact, they need work. That one of the participants delivers a sexual joke is attention getting and demonstrates that in addition to knowing how to write a joke, one also needs to know how to deliver the lines.
Which, of course, is why people attend comedy classes.
Rather than being a complete play within itself A Funny Old Business is the perfect introduction to what could become afull length comedy or series about people who want to do comedy and why. Their back stories, their use of a punch line as their own personal vendetta and the story serving as a psychiatrist's couch. Each of their personalities - neurotic, depressed, repressed,
those who are edgy just to get reactions and those desperate for love even from a crowd of strangers - have had their serfaces scratched in this episode, which makes you want to know more about each character.
Excellent acting, pitch perfect sound.
Edited by Jeff Moreno. Music by Tambor.
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This is not your typical, totally boring textbook.
In the pages of How To Earn A Living As A Freelance Writer (the first to be lied to and the last to be paid)
you'll find sex, celebrities, violence, threats, unethical editors, scummy managers and lawyers,
treacherous press agents, sex discrimination; as well as a how-to for earning money by writing down words.
ART AND ABOUT
THE WORK OF PAULA REGO The Dance 1988 (Photo: Paula Rego/Tate)
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the UK’s largest and most comprehensive retrospective of the work has opened at Tate Britain.
Dame Maria Paula Figueiroa Rego is a Portuguese-born visual artist who is particularly known for her paintings and prints based on storybooks. Rego’s style has evolved from abstract towards representational, and she has favoured pastels over oils for much of her career.
An uncompromising artist of extraordinary imaginative power, Rego (b.1935) redefined figurative art and revolutionised the way in which women are represented.
The exhibition tells the story of this artist’s remarkable life, highlighting the personal nature of much of her work and the socio-political context in which it is rooted. It reveals her broad range of references, from comic strips to history paintings. Featuring over 100 works including collage, paintings, large-scale pastels, drawings and etchings, the show spans Rego’s early work from the 1950s to her richly layered, staged scenes from the 2000s.
The exhibition begins with a selection of Rego’s rarely seen early works in which the artist first explored personal as well as social struggle. In Interrogation 1950, painted at fifteen years of age, Rego asserted her commitment to denouncing injustices and standing up for victims. In her paintings, collages and drawings from the 1960s to 70s, Rego passionately and fiercely opposed the Portuguese dictatorship, using a range of sources for inspiration including advertisements, caricatures and news stories. She also explored folk tales as representations of human psyche and behaviour, as with Brancaflor – The Devil and the Devil’s Wife in Bed 1975.
Rego abandoned collage in 1980 and returned to painting, combining childhood memories with her experiences as a woman, wife and lover. The exhibition includes major paintings from this period such as examples from ‘The Vivian Girls’ series, in which girls rebel against a coercive society, and the seminal works that established Rego’s reputation when first exhibited at the Serpentine Gallery in 1988 including The Policeman’s Daughter 1987. Many of these pictures relate to Rego’s intense relationship with her husband, the painter Victor Willing, who for many years suffered from multiple sclerosis and died in 1988.
Throughout her career, Rego has been fascinated with storytelling and this imbues much of her work. The exhibition includes prints from her series Nursery Rhymes 1989 in which Rego explores the strangeness and cruelty of traditional British children’s songs. As the first artist-in-residence at the National Gallery, Rego also took inspiration from art history, weaving references to old masters such as Hogarth and Velázquez into paintings in which the protagonists are women, exploring their struggle and their journey towards emancipation, as in The Artist in Her Studio 1993.
On display through October 24, 2021.
Supported by the Paula Rego Exhibitions Supporters Circle, Tate Americas Foundation and Tate Patrons.
JUST ARTS: ONLINE presented by Olney Theatre in Olney, MD takes place Sunday, July 18 at 7:00 pm EST.
With the theme of Heritage to guide them, artists from all over the world, discuss their legacy and their hope for the future. From Cameroon, China, Puerto Rico, NYC, Seattle, and various other cities around the world, artists were asked to create an artistic response to tell the world their story. "Who am I? Who do I hope to be? Who do I hope we can become?"
"Dance, Spoken word, narration, Song. There is something for all lovers and creators of the arts. This amazing virtual experience is a rare glimpse into culture and identity that will not only show us our differences but celebrate why at our core we are all the same."
AMERICAN ART DECO: DESIGNING FOR THE PEOPLE, 1918–1939 Raymond Loewy, designer (American, born France, 1893–1986), Hupp Motor Company, manufacturer (Detroit, Michigan, 1908–1941), Hupmobile Hood Ornament, 1936–38, chromium-plated metal, 6 3/8 x 6 1/8 x 6 1/4 in., Marshall V. Miller Collection
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investigates a dynamic period in American history and culture when the country and its citizens went through political, economic, social, and artistic transformation and revolution. From stylish decorative art objects to products of industrial design, modern American paintings to compelling photographic images, the multi-media works of art in this exhibition reflect both the glamour and optimism of the 1920s and the devastation and escapism of the 1930s.
Art Deco, short for arts décoratifs, took its name from the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes, held in Paris in 1925. It celebrated a new style characterized by geometric ornament, symmetry, stylization, and angularity, which developed globally with different variants. In the United States, it combined modern style with an embrace of rich materials and new technologies, influencing the design of everything from skyscrapers and automobiles to clothing and radios. American Art Deco offers an in-depth examination of the cultural context of this international style as it flourished in the United States between the World Wars. Primarily from Midwest collections, the 140-plus objects in this exhibition exemplify the Art Deco style and underscore significant themes of the era, including the migration of designs and designers from Europe to the United States; industrial and technological advancement in the period following World War I; the changing profile of the modern woman; the rise of the middle class and consumer culture; and inequities in gender, race, and wealth.
The exhibition is arranged in ten thematic sections: Paris to America; American Art Deco; The New Woman; An Architectural Era; Art & Design; Streamline Modern; American Expansion; Economic Depression and Stimulus; Jazz Age—Culture of Change; and Modern Living. Highlights include glass by René Lalique and the Indiana Glass Company; sculpture by Paul Manship; ceramics by Frank L. Ferrell for Roseville Pottery Company; paintings by Aaron Douglas, Walter Dove, N.C. Wyeth, and Thomas Hart Benton; and photographs by Dorothea Lange and Carl Van Vechten. An array of everyday objects—from hats, compacts, and dresses to barware, clocks, and chairs—punctuates the exhibition.
On view through September 5, 2021 a the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha, Nebraska. The exhibition will then travel to Frist Art Museum (Nashville, TN; October 8, 2021-January 2, 2022), Wichita Art Museum (Wichita, KS; February 12-May 30, 2022), and The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (Kansas City, MO; July 9, 2022-January 8, 2023).
PSYCHOANALYSIS FOR THE PEOPLE Free Clinics and the Social Mission of Psychoanalysis presented by the Freud Museum in London.
Diversity of Practices , Saturday July 24,2021, 14:00 - 17:00 GMT
Sunday, July 25, 2021, 14:00 - 17:00 GMT.
In a lecture of 1918 Freud placed the free clinic at the heart of psychoanalytic thought and practice.
This conference explores socially aware forms of psychoanalytic practice that are taking place today across the world; practices which engage with inequalities based on class, race, gender, poverty, and other forms of marginalisation. Clinicians and theoreticians from Latin America, Africa, North America and Europe will aim to build a shared vocabulary around the free clinic, including reflections on money, time, class, and race.
Confirmed Speakers:
Joanna Ryan, Lisa Baraitser, Raluca Soreanu, Barry Watt, Geraldine Ryan, Christine Diercks, Daniel Gaztambide, Peter Nevins, Graham Music, Martin Moore, Emiliano de Camargo David, Frank Lowe.
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SWEET CHARITY
ROYAL ALBERT HALL PRESENTS 150TH ANNIVERSARY CONCERT David Arnold's "A Circle of Sound" on Monday, July 19, 2021 - their first full-capacity event since March 2020.
David Arnold turns his compositional genius to create a musical snapshot of the Hall’s unique history. Let this new ten-movement work, titled A Circle of Sound, take you on a sonic journey through our first 150 years.
Special guests including Melanie C, Michael Sheen, Nicola Adams, Brian Cox, Claudia Winkleman, Jess Gillam, Sanjeev Bhaskar, LionHeart, Jemma Redgrave and Helen Pankhurst will join David on stage to present readings about each movement penned by writers Neil Gaiman, Jack Thorne and Joe Penhall.
Creative agency People – who produced the show and visuals for the 2019 Special Olympics Opening and Closing Ceremonies – and film production house White Stone Media will bring to show to life on the big screen.
Local choirs, schools, and other community groups worked with David for over a year to compose this new piece. They will also take to the stage to show the importance of community after this year of turmoil, supported by Albert’s Orchestra and the National Youth Choir of Great Britain.
STAND UP AND SHOUT FOR RONNIE JAMES DIO’S BIRTHDAY the star-studded global virtual concert fundraiser took place Saturday, July 10 from Rolling Live Studios, benefiting The Ronnie James Dio Stand Up and Shout Cancer Fund, founded in memory of the late heavy metal icon who was the voice of Elf, Rainbow, Black Sabbath and DIO before losing his battle with gastric cancer in 2010.
The celebrity participants included: Carmine Appice (Vanilla Fudge, Beck; Bogert & Appice); Vinny Appice (DIO, Black Sabbath); Michael Angelo Batio (Nitro, Holland, Shout); Kenny Aronoff (John Mellencamp, Jon Bon Jovi), Sebastian Bach, Joey Belladonna (Anthrax); Chuck Billy (Testament); John Bush (Armored Saint); Geezer Butler (Black Sabbath, Heaven & Hell); Gilby Clarke (Guns N’ Roses, Slash's Snakepit); Alice Cooper; Mikkey Dee (Scorpions, Motörhead); the DIO band--Oni Logan and Tim "Ripper" Owens, vocals; Simon Wright, drums; Scott Warren, keyboards; Rowan Robertson, guitar; and Bjorn Englen, bass—Aynsley Dunbar (Journey, Frank Zappa); keyboard player Steve Ferlazzo, Frank Ferrer (Guns N’ Roses); Lita Ford; Chuck Garric (Alice Cooper); Sammy Hagar (Van Halen, Chickenfoot, Montrose); Lzzy Hale (Halestorm); Rob Halford (Judas Priest); Tony winning singer Lena Hall (Hedwig and the Angry Inch); Glenn Hughes (Deep Purple, Black Country Communion); Terry Ilous (Great White, XYZ); Tony Iommi (Black Sabbath, Heaven & Hell); Richie Kotzen (Poison, Smith/Kotzen); LA metal band Liliac; James LoMenzo (White Lion, Slash’s Snakepit) Duff McKagan (Guns N' Roses); Sean McNabb (Quiet Riot, Dokken); Jeff Pilson (Foreigner, DIO); Rudy Sarzo (Quiet Riot, Ozzy Osbourne); Paul Shortino (Rough Cutt, Raiding the Rock Vault); Glen Sobel (Alice Cooper, Hollywood Vampires); guitarist Jasmine Star; Derek St. Holmes (Vanilla Fudge, Michael Schenker Group); Tenacious D’s Jack Black and Kyle Gass; Brian Tichy (Whitesnake, Ozzy Osbourne); Scott Travis (Judas Priest, Thin Lizzy); Mexican rock band The Warning; Ricky Warwick (Black Star Riders) and Lajon Witherspoon (Sevendust).
Radio and television personalities Eddie Trunk and Matt Pinfield will co-host the event, conducting interviews with artists as well as with Dio record producer Wyn Davis; concert promoter Danny Zelisko and Ronnie’s widow and longtime manager Wendy Dio, among others.
SPREADING THE WORD
MORE THAN 100,000 TOURISTS partied this week-end in a three block area of the Las Vegas Strip taking in Garth Brooks, Bruno Mars, Justin Bieber, comedian Chelsea Handler, Dave Chappelle and Joe Rogan as well as the Conor McGregor/Dustin Poirier fisticuffs, which was attended by numerous celebrities including former President Donald Trump.
SHAKESPEARE THEATRE NEW JERSEY (STNJ) OUTDOOR STAGE was hit by a severe storm last week. 70mph gusts of wind and sheets of rain caused significant damage to the set resulting in the difficult decision to postpone the opening of the Outdoor Stage until Saturday, July 17, 2021.
WE LIVE ON The Actors’ Gang Theater will debut We Live On, a new play based on Hard Times by Studs Terkel, on July 22nd. With additional text by Tim Robbins and the cast and under Robbins’ direction, the live virtual production will be presented in three parts and will run through September 4th. With music by Cameron Dye and David Robbins, this world premiere features 30 accounts of the Great Depression, including those of Dolores Huerta, Dorothy Day, and Cesar Chavez.
Fifty-one years ago, author and chronicler of the common man, Studs Terkel, interviewed businessmen, auto workers, farmers, hobos, striptease artists, repo men, seamstresses, and labor leaders and asked them what it was like to live through the Great Depression. Their words of survival have a direct link to the challenges faced worldwide during the COVID pandemic.
We Live On, a live virtual production, will run from July 22nd through September 4th. Each part presents ten stories and stands as a complete experience. Audiences around the globe can also join online prerecorded screening every Sunday, between July 25th and September 5th, at 9 am (PT) for Part One, at 10:30 am (PT) for Part Two, at 12 pm (PT) for Part Three. This marks the first Actors’ Gang mainstage production since the theater closed its doors in March of 2020.
About a year ago, on Hard Times’ 50th anniversary, faced with the inability to assemble, The Actors’ Gang started working via zoom to adapt Terkel’s Hard Times. The production explores 30 different stories – a mix of stories documented by Terkel and original stories from the family histories of cast members – of courage and determination, a testimony of what it takes to survive unprecedented times, which are now presented over three different performances.
Some of the stories presented in We Live On include:
Sally Rand, whose fan dance to the strains of Debussy's “Clair de Lune” and Chopin's “Waltz in C Sharp Minor,” created a sensation at the 1933 Chicago World's Fair and helped launch a career that lasted more than 30 years. (Based on Studs Terkel’s interview with Sally Rand)
Labor activist Cesar Chavez, who was moved to action by the targeted mistreatment of field workers that he witnessed as a child in The Great Depression. (Based on Studs Terkel’s interview with Cesar Chavez)
Louis Banks, who rode the rails from Arkansas to Los Angeles on top of a boxcar with dreams of becoming a chef and hopes of finding any employment in the North. (Based on Studs Terkel’s interview with Louis Banks)
The words of Langston Hughes, the poet of the Harlem Renaissance, performed by contemporary poet Cyrus Roberts.
Stephanie Galindo gives a voice to the hardship of migrant laborers and unearths the stories of the 28 formerly anonymous “Deportees.” (Original Story)
Horace Clayton Jr., who left the comforts of his affluent upbringing for a tour of the South Side of Chicago where he was mobilized by the Black community’s unified, organized labor protests. (Based on Studs Terkel’s interview with Horace Clayton Jr.)
Lawrence Zuckerman opens up to his niece Cady about the long-term effect of his parents' Russian Jewish immigrant experience during The Great Depression. (Original Story)
Activist Dolores Huerta of United Farm Workers discusses farm laborers and immigrant rights.
Ruth Grey Ratner survived a harrowing upbringing in The Great Depression, and as she tells Hannah Hartman, has no worries about surviving the pandemic. (Original Story)
Dorothy Day, the Catholic social activist, and her work with the homeless, the hungry, the impoverished of New York City throughout the Great Depression (Based on Studs Terkel’s interview with Dorothy Day)
We Live On Part One cast includes: Jeronimo Spinx (Louis Banks), Guebri VanOver (Dynamite Garland), Mary Eileen O’Donnell (Harry O’Donnell – her father), Josh Latzer (Martin DeVries ), Stephanie G. Galindo (Anonymous ), Hannah Hartman ( Ruth Gray Ratner - her family friend), Jeanette Horn (Evelyn Finn), Vincent Foster (Harry Hartman ), Dora Kiss (Julia Walther), and Cihan Sahin (Marshall and Steve).
We Live On Part Two cast includes: Ana Ming Bostwick-Singer (Olga & William Bostwick - her Grandmother & Grandfather), Adam J. Jefferis (Slim Collier), Mariana Da Silva (Dolores Huerta), Patti Tippo (Sally Rand), Gratiela Brancusi (Jane Yoder), Stephanie Pinnock (Elsa Ponselle), Luis Quintana (Jose Yglesias), Jeremie Loncka (Harry & Peter Loncka – his Grandfather & Great Grandfather), Miroslav Vejnovic (Ed Paulsen), and Bob Turton (Hank Oettinger).
We Live On Part Three cast includes: Stephan Smith (Horace R. Cayton Jr.), Cady Zuckerman (Lawrence Jay Zuckerman), Pedro Shanahan (Bob Stinson), Megan Stogner (Dr. David J. Rossman), Kayla Blake (William Kealohaonalani Sniffen – Her Grandfather), Kathryn Carner (Peggy Terry), Robert Chavez (Cesar Chavez), Adele Robbins (Dorothy Day), Kaili Hollister (Ernest Russell – Her Great Grandfather), and Cyrus Roberts (Langston Hughes).
BECOMING OTHELLO: A BLACK GIRL'S JOURNEY written and performed by Debra Ann Byrd.
Directed by Tina Packer.
Described as a living memoir, Becoming Othello: A Black Girl’s Journey is a multimedia theatrical production with lyrical language, soulful songs and the music that shaped the life of a resilient little girl growing up in Spanish Harlem. This choreopoem chronicles the life of classical actress Debra Ann Byrd.
The solo show flows from Debra Ann’s recounting of her ancestral lineage to her arrival at a crossroad in life, while taking us through her joy-filled and tumultuous youth; a fateful encounter with a company of Shakespearean actors and her remarkable, gender-flipped journey on the road to becoming Othello. We share in Debra Ann’s struggle with self-esteem and how, against all odds, she manages to make it through foster care, teenage pregnancy and single parenting, to become the person she always dreamed she could be. "It is a deeply personal, poignant and powerful story of perseverance, tragedy, triumph and ultimately, unconditional love."
July 16 to 25 at The Roman Garden Theatre, Shakespeare & Company campus in Lenox, MA.
THE TWO CHARACTER PLAY by Tennessee Williams.
This innovative psychological thriller is directed by Sam Yates.
Starring Kate O'Flynn and Zubin Varla.
This partly autobiographical drama opens July 17 until 28 August 28, 2021 at the Hampstead in London.
CHARLIE & STAN a silent comedy about the greatest comedy duo that nearly was.
Olivier and Tony Award-winning producer David Pugh, the renowned theatre company Told by an Idiot and Theatre Royal Bath Productions present the Silent Comedy Charlie and Stan, created by Told by an Idiot, written and directed by Paul Hunter, with an original piano score played live.
Due to the actor playing Charlie Chaplin in the original production becoming pregnant, Charlie Chaplin will now be played by Danielle Bird, joining Jerone Marsh-Reid as Stan Laurel, Nick Haverson as Fred Karno and Sara Alexander playing all the other parts, including Chaplin’s mother, and the piano. They will be joined by Reggie, making his stage debut as Scraps the Dog. Reggie will not play Sundays – something to do with Elaine Paige – and, at those performances, the part of Scraps will be played by a puppet.
Famous Belgian clown, Jos Houben, who was one of the founding members of Complicité, has been brought on board as the physical comedy consultant.
In 1910, the then unknown Charlie Chaplin and Stan Laurel set sail on board a tramp steamer from Liverpool to New York as part of Fred Karno’s famous music hall troupe. On the voyage, they shared a cabin, they shared comedy routines, they shared laughter, but, by the end of the journey, they hated each other... yet they would both go on to become two of the biggest stars of the age.
"Inspired by real life events, Charlie& Stan is a hilarious and deeply moving homage to two men who changed the world of comedy forever."
Charlie & Stan is directed by Paul Hunter and designed by Ioana Curelea, with lighting design by Aideen Malone, video design by Dom Baker, original piano score by Mercury Award nominee Zoe Rahman and song arrangement by Sophie Cotton. Jos Houben is physical comedy consultant and dance choreography is by Nuna Sandy for ZooNation: The Kate Prince Company. CHARLIE & STAN is from an idea by Irene Cotton, with additional material from the company.
It will open in Bath on July 17, followed by a national tour. The national press night will be held at the Minack Theatre on Monday August 2, 2021.
LIVE MUSIC ONSTAGE has returned to Kean University in New Jersey, with a Kean Stage outdoor concert July 17 at 6:30 p.m. by Grammy-winning jazz guitarist John Scofield and the John Scofield Trio featuring Vicente Archer & Bill Stewart on the Lawn at Enlow Hall.
LONDON MUSICAL THEATRE ORCHEATRA returns to the Royal Albert Hall for Alpha's The Best of the West End, taking place on Wednesday July 21, 2021.
Featuring songs from West Side Story, Wicked, Les Misérables, Chicago, Hairspray and more, the night promises to be a true celebration of musical theatre in one of the UK's most iconic venues.
Presented by Olivier Award-winner Ruthie Henshall, the concert will feature the 40-piece London Musical Theatre Orchestra, playing some of the world's greatest musical hits. On stage a spectacular cast of West End stars, including John Owen-Jones, Kerry Ellis, Mica Paris, Anna-Jane Casey, Matt Henry MBE, Sophie Evans, Ben Forster, Mazz Murray, Gina Murray, Layton Williams, Lauren Samuels, Friederike Krum and Matthew Croke. The choir will feature students from Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts and MX Masterclass.
OTHER PEOPLE'S
MONEY
IATSE LOCAL ONE AND THE METROPOLITAN OPERA after nearly round-the-clock negotiations at the end of June that lasted into the July 4th holiday weekend, negotiators for the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees Local One and the Metropolitan Opera reached a tentative agreement for a new contract. Stage and shop crew members of IATSE Local One employed at the Met Opera were briefed by the union’s president James J. Claffey Jr. and the union’s bargaining team on the settlement. The tentative agreement will now go to the full membership of the local union for a ratification vote on July 18. As a result of an overwhelming majority of the Met’s stage and shop crew members voting in favor of submitting a positive recommendation to the full membership to ratify the agreement, IATSE Local One members began work in the opera house startingWednesday, July 7.
If a tentative agreement had not been reached this week, the opening of the 2021-2022 opera season would have been postponed or possibly the season cancelled.
Full details of the agreement will be released after members of IATSE Local One review the contract and vote on ratification July 18.
In December, the Met locked out 350 stagehands and others represented by IATSE Local One. The Met Opera, with roughly 3,000 workers, is the largest performing arts organization in the United States. It also is the only arts company in America that locked out its workers during the pandemic. During the lockout the Met Opera sent production work for two operas, Rigoletto and Don Carlos that would normally be done by American workers in New York, to a company in Wales, in the United Kingdom. Sets for Fire Shut up in my Bones, scheduled for a September 27, opening-night premier, were sent to a non-union production operation on the west coast.
According to the official release: "Until Peter Gelb, the opera company’s executive director, approached the union last month, no formal or informal talks had occurred between Local One and the opera company’s managers for seven months. Gelb asked the union to return the week of June 7 to work to prepare the opera house and load in sets for the upcoming opera season. The union said its crews would only return with a contract, and proposed a period of intensive bargaining. The Met agreed. Contract talks began on June 7 and unlike earlier rounds of negotiations in 2020, Gelb was present at the bargaining table.
"Over the past few months, IATSE has been forced to file charges with the National Labor Relations Board because opera managers have failed to respond to information requests from the union or adequately address safety issues.
"In addition to stagehands and skilled craftspeople who are members of Local One, IATSE represents Met workers who broadcast the stage productions, design lighting and paint backdrops, prepare wardrobe and costumes, and style hair and makeup, along with many others who make the magic on stage happen."
International Alliance of Theatrical and Stage Employees (IATSE) local unions representing the Metropolitan Opera’s artistic and technical workers include: Local One represents skilled craftspeople who are experts in carpentry, lighting, sound, props, and set and building construction. Local 764 includes costume shop employees who create the costumes, and dressers who assist the performers with their costumes. Local 751 is comprised of the workers who most frequently interact with the public–box-office employees such as treasurers and ticket sellers. Local 798 includes the artists responsible for hair and makeup. Local 794 represents technicians involved in the Met’s live broadcasts. USA 829 represents scenic artists as well as the designers of sets, lighting, costumes and sound.
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THE 2021 GRADUATES OF THE OLD GLOBE AND UNIVERSITY OF SAN DIEGO SHILEY GRADUATE THEATRE PROGRAM of San Diego Shiley Graduate Theatre Program Christopher Cruz, Lily Davis, Christopher M. Ramirez, Klarissa Marie Robles, Claire Simba, Joz Vammer, and Jonathan Aaron Wilson.
The seven graduates have attended online classes for 15 months of a two-year graduate program.
In honor of their accomplishment they will be starring in Thhinking Shakespeare LOVE!, a celebration of love in the plays, poems, and songs of Shakespeare.Director Barry Edelstein will host an evening of excerpts all about the crazy, wonderful, intoxicating spirit of love that suffuses the Bard’s works. Performances will play for two nights only on July 16 and 17 at The Old Globe’s outdoor venue, the Lowell Davies Festival Theatre.
A joint venture of The Old Globe and the University of San Diego, the Shiley Graduate Theatre Program nationally recruits seven students each year to participate in an intensive two-year, year-round course of graduate study in classical theatre. In 1987, The Old Globe and the University of San Diego established a graduate acting program. The result has been one of the most acclaimed classical training programs in the United States, receiving hundreds of applications each year. It has become one of the most competitive graduate acting programs in the country. The program's graduates have made their mark in the profession. One notable graduate is Jim Parsons, the Golden Globe and Emmy Award–winning star of The Big Bang Theory.
PALOMA SIERRA a Puerto Rican writer, translator, educator and curator has been commissioned to pen the second segment of Hero Theatre and Hero Multimedia’s Nuestro Planeta, a ten-year multimedia new works initiative that focuses on educating Latinx film and theater audiences about environmental justice within the Americas.
A series of films and plays that center on the relationship between Latinx communities and the earth, Nuestro Planeta will focus on specific countries in Latin America, beginning with Colombia and Puerto Rico.
Diana Burbano, a Colombian immigrant living in the U.S., was previously announced by Hero as the initiative’s first commission.
Both the Colombian and Puerto Rican segments will be devised and directed by Hero founding artistic director Elisa Bocanegra.
Nuestro Planeta is the first collaboration between Hero Theatre and newly formed Hero Multimedia. The initiative was inspired by Bocanegra’s mentorship with Black Lives Matters co-founder Patrisse Cullors. Bocanegra is part of the second cohort of Cullors' Environmental and Social Justice Arts program at Prescott College, a private institution in Arizona that was founded in 1966.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO . . . .
CAMILLA, DUCHESS OF CORNWALL makes a wish and blows out the birthday candles on July 17. Last week Camilla and her husband Prince Charles twice attended Ascot. She didn't let the summer heat bother her, looking cool and smart in eye catching outfits: a multiple sky blue shaded Bruce Oldfield coat dress with a matching mask topped with a stylish Philip
Treacy blue hat; and a stunning champagne hued chiffon dress by Fiona Clare featured an elegant pleated, flowing hemline topped by another Treacy hat.
Oh, her husband looked smart, too, in an appropriate grey outfit and top hat.
The couple presented the trophy tio jockey Ryan Moore following his win the "Prince of Wales' Stakes' on Love".
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This is not your typical, totally boring textbook.
In the pages of How To Earn A Living As A Freelance Writer (the first to be lied to and the last to be paid)
you'll find sex, celebrities, violence, threats, unethical editors, scummy managers and lawyers,
treacherous press agents, sex discrimination; as well as a how-to for earning money by writing down words.
FINAL OVATION
PAUL HUNTLEY Tony award winning wig designer died in his London home on June 9, 2021. He was 88.
Noted for his attention to character detail, in his lengthy career the respected and admired designer created wigs for over 200 Broadway productions.
A sampling of his career which included stage and movies include.
Broadway productions of Brigadoon, My Fair Lady, Company, Seussical, Follies, Mamma Mia!, Thoroughly Modern Millie, La Cage aux Folles, A Streetcar Named Desire, The Pajama Game and Sweet Charity. The personable designer created 48 separate wigs just for 2014’s Bullets Over Broadway.
Among his more than 60 film credits are the various wigs of Fried Green Tomatoes, Betty Buckley’s country-coif in Tender Mercies and Faye Dunaway’s period-style curls of The Wicked Lady. Huntley’s list of leading ladies ranges from classic film stars Bette Davis and Vivian Leigh to Claire Danes and Jean Smart. Prior to his Broadway career, he helped construct the Cleopatra braids for Elizabeth Taylor, and the wig for Laurence Olivier’s controversial blackface performance in the 1965 film Othello.
He was given a special Tony Honor for Excellence in Theatre award in 2003.
He was predeceased by his longtime partner Paul Plassan, who died in 1991.
Next Column: July 18, 2021
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